Hit 'em where it hurts Mr. President!

I just love this President's fearless and open disdain for the left's sanctimonious intransigence.. His tweet that "we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming" in the icebox we are having now really tickled me.

A well known activist in the 60's bade an audience mostly sympathetic to him to laugh at the hecklers in the audience rather than confronting them with anger. He knew that would leave the hecklers fuming in irrefutable humiliation.

I can just picture Al Gore after having read the President's comment, lip curling and chin held high, heaving his ever more luxurious bulk and his capacious three overcoats to his protesting feet to place another corn cob on the fire and bid the help ready the sleigh for yet another progress to the place of expostulation, there to satisfy his unbearable outrage with impassioned and universally lauded excoriation of he who has the crust to disagree with Al's unquestionable truth and justice (while the President giggles unforgiveably).

I don't know if global warming is happening and if it is, that humanity is the cause.  Its really not the issue highlighted by the President's insolent crack. The pompous self assurance displayed by those who believe both theories to be FACT (!) is a laughable matter on the face of it but it sure could lead to alot of wasted money and effort.  The economy is fired up now and zillions poured into yet another increasingly totalitarian leftist journey toward perfection could be the dousing the left wishes for our undeserved prosperity.  As always radicals cannot abide any possibility of their being tragically wrongheaded, as they have been since 1917, to the ruin of hundreds of millions of lives.  And that is the real import of President Trump's little poke at them.  Jack  

National Endowment for the Arts - kill it this time!

This is mostly a rewrite of a post I made in March, 2017 on another blog;  with a substantial tax cut now law, elimination of unnecessary and unjust federal and state spending is so much the more vital. Last year's proposal to eliminate the NEA failed; the effort must go on this year.

Here we'll go again with the anguished protestations of those who say they foresee the death of the arts in the prospect of the complete federal defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts which I hope to see realized in this year's budget. Oh somehow the arts, which have weathered the vicissitudes of ten thousand years of human folly and destruction, will survive I owe (the worthy ones at least).

What must die is the requirement that taxpayers pay for "art" which often sneers at traditional values but never dares to blaspheme the "politically correct". The NEA funded Andres Serrano, who executed the celebrated "Piss Christ" (damned be the thinking which conceived that title) in hopes, I suppose, that it would one day flank The Pieta.  His abomination depicts a crucifix dipped in urine; that speaks for itself.  You can be certain that an imaginary creator of a "Piss Hillary Clinton" or "Let's Defecate on a Statue of Nelson Mandela"would never have been supported, despite the transcendent beauty and art historical significance of such daring ideas.

I think there are people of good will who sincerely believe the proposed defunding to be a philistine attack on the arts by low brows.  It is not.  For my own part I treasure what is generally considered to be encompassed by the term "the arts".  I love Shakespeare and and I experienced "the joy of being alive in his great poetry" several years ago on stage with a local theatre group which does receive some  taxpayer funding. I am convinced this group and any doing as good a job as it does would be supported by the public, without requiring taxpayers to ante up, on its merits (that's the key - MERITS).

Similarly, artists lauded for depicting Santa's elves having sex and other disdainful masterpieces would be hard put to gain support from the general public - why that's just common sense.  But experience shows we simply cannot expect such rectitude from unelected bureaucrats - deep staters ad nauseum. In Buffalo, several years ago, elected County Executive Chris Collins, now a Congressman, relieved county taxpayers of having to pay for art organizations. But Shakespeare in the Park soldiered on somehow and I rejoice that it did.

No, the visceral outrage comes from those who believe it just that our public and what is left of our "private" lives be controlled by an "enlightened" elite and that that should include devotion of taxpayer's money to cultural efforts which satisfy that elite and often ridicule Middle America. ( How would these snobs feel if they were forced to pay for The Young and the Restless?)  "Benevolent" but mandatory guidance on the part of our betters is integral to their continued crusade to transform our nation to one of political righteousness. And public acquiescence in this advances their all too obvious relentless campaign to subject us all to totalitarian control of expression in order to place us permanently in their thrall.  That is why the amount of the funding is of secondary importance ( though of course lots of small cuts add up to big savings ); it is the purpose and the message which it sends which must be resolutely confronted while we are yet able.  Jack  

     

Our Western Civilization: how I love it!

I've just listened again to Handel's Messiah, as I delight in doing every year in this glorious and glowing season.  An image I cherish in connection with this work is that of George II, in regal dignity no doubt but mightily moved by the magnificence and deep, deep beauty of the Hallelujah Chorus, surging to his feet in reverence.  What a thrill it is to participate in the traditional reenactment of that sublime moment which attends every performance of this treasure.

How great the civilization  which generated and preserved such wonders.  I'm reminded of this most intensely when we celebrate the birth of the spiritual founder of our western world; the credibly believed to be redeemer of all humanity from chastisement for its misdeeds and guarantor of eternal life. His Faith is the essential moral backbone which is sine qua non in our public and private lives in our part of the world ,the willful and presumptuous rejection of which in our time by so many of its fortunate and ungrateful spawn has had predictably catastrophic consequences. What a lovely and inspiring time it is.

He was born into a place in which the high and seminal culture of Rome met that of the people for whom it can be believed that they have a covenant with a power which will always be beyond our comprehension: to witness just how he wishes human life to be led.  Within a little more than three centuries they had  given rise to that without which present day Western Civilization could never have been - the Catholic Church.

Via the Romans and classical Islam - the Greeks -  who introduced us to the intellectual rule of reason and the worth of the individual; to the Romans with their noble language, their vision of Europe as a whole, their superlative engineering and above all their regard for the rule of law; to Christ, Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Henry II, Petrarch, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Newton, Locke,Voltaire, Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln , perhaps Churchill and of course  Mother Theresa and St.John Paul II; our Western pantheon does us proud.

The Chinese sun shines never more proudly than now in the East.  Theirs is a very great and consequential culture and I hope that it may live in harmony with ours.  I am so very grateful that I've been born into that of the West. Jack       

Trump hatred - what it predicts

Try as they will to mislead us as to their totalitarian intent, leftists just cannot avoid  offering us telling previews of how it will be for all of us should they take over permanently (their undoubted and cherished goal).

A cartoon in our local newspaper today  highlighted yet another harrowing example . It depicted  Ebenezer Trump  contemplating the image of Marley/Nixon on his door - a prelude of course to visits by cathartic spirits bent upon apprising Scrooge/Trump of his manifest perfidy. This image is thought by the overwhelmingly leftist bigoted press to be one of which the vast majority would naturally approve.

The left considers any who oppose it to be both objectively mistaken and morally reprehensible. That is because its principles are based on its expectations for the future, for which there can be no empirical evidence to support or refute their predictions.  So convenient and so typical, yes, of those whose beliefs were formed out of whole cloth in '60's dorm rooms. Objective intellectual inquiry and examination was not their style, because to them it was the way of an older generation summarily dismissed by the multitudinous "boomers".  The "boomer's" beliefs, profoundly influenced by theretofore rightfully despised radical leftist academics, with whom they fell in love, are therefore beyond controversy -" they are self evident because we say so".  "Look how we had our way, we must be correct." Actually there were so damn many of us that we could have crammed into phone booths and swallowed goldfish and still have brought down and elected Presidents. 

This has, of course, made it possible to blithely dismiss the yet very empirical history of the 20th century, replete with the incalculably monstrous crimes of the left, as simply a tactical mistake and a learning experience.  Certainly it is not, by their lights, a condemnation of their cause.  To them, 100 million deaths at the hands of leftists in power is a risk worth repeating. So much for that.

Now along comes Donald Trump, a canny courageous player and a loyal American who sees them for what they are and has the guts to say so.  Now the comparison to Richard Nixon:  Oh how the jackals of the left expect to  worry Trump unto destruction as they did Nixon.  I lived as an increasingly comprehending young adult through much of the public life of Nixon and I'm acquainted with the early part of it.  I don't know why but much of the press was already inclined left by the '50's. McCarthy?  How else to explain its excoriation of Nixon for his now proven indictment of Alger Hiss, the third ranking official in the State Dep't at one time, as a toady for the hellish and subhuman Stalin. Too bad Hiss was never given a taste of the Gulag. But another knock on Nixon was that he was perceived as being as plain and droll as Pat's cloth coat and had the temerity to rise despite the contempt accorded him by the fashionable.  One recalls the description of "JFK"s lip curling at the sight of Nixon conceding and one can sympathize with the self made Nixon's dread of yet another defeat by that silly voluptuary clan.

The nonpolitician Trump is  uncool too and that enables in those already incensed at him for having derailed their love train the most unrelenting viciousness.  In doing so they predict what they will do to all Americans who have the gall to yet embrace traditional American values after the left's "inevitable" takeover.  If the 20th century experience of the always murderous far left in power was not enough, this should be an unmistakeable warning and promise. And it should strengthen the real America's resolve to cause its defeat and unconditional surrender. Jack    

"Internet neutrality" yeah right!

Certain verities define the Obama viewpoint and the consequent intent of Obama actions.  He is a committed Marxist devoted to the destruction of the Marxist antithesis, the freedom loving U.S. Sure, in office,he brilliantly maintained the false image of a yet loyal American in accordance with the precepts of the seminal Saul Alinsky, which bade radicals be ever deceptive about their beliefs and intentions until they achieve confirmed, permanent and irresistable power.  He expected to be succeeded by a radical who would carry on his work, perhaps to realization.  He could not have anticipated the despised real America's decisive support for Donald Trump.  It was beyond his ken.

Now his mandates, which he thought irrevocable, are being reversed by one as Machiavellian as he!
I know very little about the technicalities of "Internet Neutrality" but I need merely know that it was advanced by Barack Obama.  And that guarantees that its purpose in his establishment of it in the administrative law of the U.S. was to extend Federal power toward the eventual goal of completely centralized Federal control of all aspects of our lives.  The Internet is not a minor factor now is it?

But the "inevitable " progression of the rule of the left has been interrupted. For them it is two steps "forward" and 1.999 backwards, courtesy of Donald Trump, who they could never have foreseen as their Nemesis, as snobbish as they are .  I delight in their discomfiture, as it heralds the salvation of our good nation.  Of course some change is in order; but it is not the comprehensive  rebuilding the left seeks.  Sorry, its just not!

I know that Rush often speaks of the ever most important goal of the American left - comprehensive, totalitarian domination of America.  Can it ever be spoken of too much?.  I think not; it is the fundamental threat to all we hold dear.  Being totalitarian it is "total" in its dictatorial intent and its deadly promise ,yes?  Jack

A costly victory for calumny

Well, we surely did take it on the chin with the defeat of Roy Moore and so did the country.  Judge Moore would have been stalwart in the Senate for the unapologetic, confident conservatism which recognizes our nation's Christian essence. He was defeated by the circulation of unproven charges of sexual misconduct. Without the substantiation of the charges he was eminently representative of his state.  Senator Jones will answer to the most unAlabama like Charles Schumer, a man who could not be elected Assistant Pencil Sharpener in any state other than the people's republic of NY.

Despite the fact that Republicans still control the Senate, Dems today think they are back where they belong, in the driver's seat.  This is to them a return to normality after a bizarre interlude of hissy and ignorant reaction by the real America.  And when they think that, they always overreach. Hence. . .

Thinking this strategem a windfall delivered them by their longtime benefactor, Harvey Weinstein, Dems will now go all out to encourage the levelling of charges of "sexual harassment" against any who attract their basilisk gaze.  Its an old, old thing with them; they delight in the visible quivering defensiveness which certain charges automatically manifest in those who are spineless or cannot afford to defend themselves.  Their favorite is "racism", a term so misused and overused by them over the last fifty years that it can be defeated simply by asking them to define it. Most of the time they cannot, or they comically point to themselves in doing so, because they have never before been required to think the term out.

 Similarly they will hasten to use "sexual harassment" now as an all purpose condemnation upon accusation of any man who opposes any woman in any way, including very serious crimes.  Eventually they will make the term as bereft of logical negative impact as they have "racism".  But along the way they will do much evil with it both to the innocent and perhaps to themselves:

I am put in mind of how the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution destroyed its progenitors .  This could easily happen to the Dems as  the fear of mere accusation they will now be blithe to excite in their opponents is turned on them. They have many candidates for such calumny in their ranks and I don't mean Slick Willy - he is to them completely expendable now. He has sunk beneath contempt but he may be lifted from the ooze just long enough to face disingenuous formal excoriation and final exile.

Call me Pollyanna (or don't) but the real America still prevails. I rejoice to know that the left thinks otherwise; it will be their undoing yet.  Jack   

Oh please B'rer Bear, don't throw us Dems in that briar patch!

Why those sincere Dems! They really do mean it; they are resolutely determined to purge their ranks of all who have looked cross eyed at any politically correct woman.  To that end they have thrown ancient John Conyers and sanctimonious Al Franken on the offal pile.  In doing so they have, by their lights, affirmed their never to be doubted commitment to political ruin for any simply accused of such offenses. That they went to the wall for "Bill" Clinton, for whom there is credible evidence ,in the view of those not enamored of him, that he is a repeated forcible rapist and that they reflexively supported his grotesque partner's trashing of all women who protested Slick Willy's smarmy advances, is to be forgotten, yes?  Why, its in the past isn't it? Bless me for a fool but those Dems might even turn on the royal couple now that their value is no more.

They do gain from this in the short run.  They can disingenuously but effectively maintain that they are the friends of oppressed women and that their actions bear this out.  They expect the Governor of Minnesota will appoint a Dem to serve out Franken's term (bumptious Keith Ellison I hope, I hope). And as for Conyers, oh well they are so far behind in the House that the numbers don't matter and he's, well, spent, yes?

In the long run the real America benefits though.  That's because Kirsten Gillibrand, she of  the junior class demeanor and Charles Schumer's faithful vassal, makes progress thereby toward the Dem's Presidential nod in 2020.  Why, she has squeaked most eloquently at thankfully almost former Senator Franken.  It is for the common sense America a much to be wished for outcome that young Kirsten carry the banner  of the unquestionably just left in 2020 against the demon Trump.  He'll "learn" her, alright and she'll join Anthony Weiner in that special place reserved for Schumer's avatars. Oh cry the beloved"Empire State"! How the real America must despise us for having polluted the national polity with such as  Anthony, Charles, Kirsten, Hillary and  Andrew.

Can't say I'm sorry to see Franken disgraced.  He and his ilk (eg. Samantha Bee) know no limits in their vicious  "humor".  Good riddance.  Jack       

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!

I rejoice at our President's rendition today to Israel and Jerusalem of the deference due that redoubtable land and that sacred city.  What an interesting but redeeming  spectacle it is to see our young country honor that old and seminal culture, to which we owe so much that is positive in  our tradition and so very much admiration for their unconquerable fortitude. Why, of course Jerusalem is their capital; they've known it for millennia.

Jerusalem was the Jewish nation's capital centuries before Christianity and Islam were realized.  When Islamic forces had full control of the city between 1948 and 1967, they forcibly denied  Jews access to their most sacred sites. Since Israeli Jews took control of the city by mortal combat in 1967 they have allowed access to all sites sacred to the three Abrahamic religions to all who do not seek to harm Israelis. Full stewardship of the city by a civilization as wise and tolerant as that of Israel is a guarantee of such freedom and it is unthinkable that Israel would or should ever relinquish that tortuously achieved dominion.

Recognition by our great democracy of this reality is an act to be treasured by all in the real America and yet another expression of our courageous President's resolve to  fulfill his campaign promises. I've said it before:  I think any nation's support for Israel is a credible test of its own civilization; not its leftist perfection - no, its fundamental humanity.

Oh my, some will be upset by this. Some have been as upset over the years as to advocate, or to apologize for those who advocate, merely the complete eradication of Israel, population and all.  Presumably salt would be plowed into the soil of the cleansed land, yes? So some don't like today's U.S. action. So what else is new?

When we support Israel we do ourselves proud by standing with the most heroic and civilized people on earth. I am not Jewish but I love the Israelis for the transcendent honor which accrues to their miraculous home and for the shining example they have set for all of humanity, as was intended by the Lord with whom  I believe they have a convenant.  Jack

A preview of Utopia

Individual leftists like Barack Obama often conceal their convictions in well advised compliance with Saul Alinsky's advice to them that that is the only way to actually gain the power to "fundamentally transform" this unforgiveable land.  But the American left as a whole often offers us brazen demonstrations of how it will be if they achieve the totalitarian sway they seek.  They do this in areas  which they already dominate.

The obvious example is the American "university", which has become a disgraceful swamp of  vindictive radical bigotry.  The entertainment industry and its cousin, the mainstream "news" outlets are two more obvious examples.

The disgraceful exoneration of an ad infinitum illegal immigrant and reflexive law breaker from responsibility and consequent inconvenience for a death he nonetheless caused, by a jury in lala land San Francisco, serves us fair notice of the principles upon which justice would be conducted in the "fundamentally transformed" America for which the left yet strives with unrelenting devotion.

Judgement would be conducted with a swiftness impossible at present.  Critical and summary would be the "political correctness" test apparently embraced by this jury.  The defendant was eminently correct in that he came from a nation impoverished solely by U.S. greed and oppression and in that he was a criminal. But certain forgiveness was his, due to his being an illegal immigrant and therefore the darling of those incensed by President Trump's determination to enforce our laws.  The dead victim:  Well, she was apparently bright and happy ( a sure sign of undeserved "privilege") and though she gets some points for being a woman . . .

Here's the clincher:  we know that racism is anathema to the left (I use the term"racism" only to refer to it. It has been thoroughly overused and misused over the last 50 years).  But  there is one group for which radicals cheerfully violate the principle and the San Francisco victim was an involuntary member of that racial group. If she was Jewish she belonged to the one similarly excoriated ethnic group .  On either count she stands condemned of inexcusable political incorrectness and therefore undeserving of justice due to her consequent responsibility for offenses against the wretched of this earth. See how simple it is?  None of this unnecessary "due process" now.

That is how it could be everywhere in our country if we don't stop it.   Jack 

  

Crime and common sense

Dear Reader: (I started this before the disgraceful verdict was rendered in San Francisco. I'll write about that very soon.) Here we go again.  An article in our rural area newspaper suggests that the"mass incarceration" "evident" in the numbers (some 2.2 million imprisoned nationally) must be proof of catastrophic and unjust dysfunction in the criminal justice system itself.  In this case it is maintained that overly zealous and socially unenlightened prosecutors intimidate the accused into plea bargains for reduced penalties for crimes they did not commit. Yeah, it happens but for the most part most of those accused of felonies are up to their neck in prior  and present offenses.

I worked in four NY state prisons for 20 years with intensive contact with state prison inmates as a law librarian and with frequent access to their "rap sheets".  Most of them, though not all, were habitual criminals.

The number of persons incarcerated in the U.S. is a direct result of the rate of committed crime in the U.S. If  incarceration disproportionately effects certain areas, mostly in U.S. cities, it is because that's where many, many crimes occur, at the hands moreover of residents of those areas, not of some imaginary invading horde.  The victims are of course very often those who reside in these unfortunate areas. Those who do not reside there cannot but be aware of the daily outrages in such areas due to local news coverage of both that and crime in less dangerous areas.

We must make a fundamental decision in this country to emphasize the protection of those any sane society protects as a matter of course - the innocent and law abiding,especially senior citizens and children -  so that this consideration becomes paramount. We have paid an enormous, unconscionable price for our well intentioned but proven over time to be wrong headed  overconsideration of the "rights" of purposeful lowlifes.  They CAN be controlled; it takes political will to do so but it can be done. The positive living, law abiding majority must protect itself and the most vulnerable it contains, against victimizers, no matter the dubious and self serving excuses the perpetrators consistently advance.   

We can start by dividing our prison systems into two levels only:  the first would be for those whose crimes do not mandate their permanent divorce from society.  These should be involuntarily committed to shock incarceration facilities for 6 months of militarily disciplined rigor coupled with intensive group therapy designed to impress upon them society's resolve that they accept individual responsibility for their behavior, featuring instant consequences for negative behavior and positive reinforcement for improvement.  They need, for the benefit of those among them who truly do not know the fundamentals of positive living, to see what it is. In this setting any plausible expression of "fronting" on the part of inmates must result either in reconsignment to the beginning of the program or exile to the second level for those proven incorrigible.  For graduates,it would be their choice thereafter to pursue or disdain what they have been taught and the consequences would accrue to them individually. Failure to pursue positive lives must assuredly result in consignment to the second level. I worked, with pride, in Shock Incarceration for seven years and I know it renders justice to tax payers, crime victims and yes, to inmates.

The second  level would be for those whose vicious crimes or resistance to correction make it necessary for them to be kept in permanent custody.This would be accomplished by confining them to prisons for life (for those convicted of unforgiveably cruel crimes)or to inescapable electronic surveillance until very advanced age cures them of the lust for such perverse excitement or profit. The death penalty would be administered only to those whose guilt is beyond ANY doubt, whose crimes warrant it and would be accomplished by the fearful method of electrocution. Society and crime victims are due some retribution after all; it was a beneficial thing to see the fear in Ted Bundy's countenance as he fully realized what was about to happen to him in the chair.

Along with this must be a sea change in our drug laws. Sure, low level drugs open the door to much worse substances but so does alcohol.  We tried to outlaw alcohol and that  didn't work.  Legalize all the recreational drugs and then  make the laws against the truly destructive ones draconian indeed. Singapore offers us a good example, in their treatment of all drug offenses, for the course we must follow in prosecuting the heartless distribution of the obviously and assuredly lethal drugs. Use of such drugs rates assignment to the first level. Distribution must result in assured tenure in  the second level.

Our democracy is an experiment and we must face the fact that some of it has been counterproductive.  We must of course continue to protect inherent human rights confirmed by our Constitution but we must summon the moral courage necessary to take in hand those who make a cynical mockery of those rights  and to deny them any gain from their unempathetic and unsympathetic misdeeds. Mayor Guiliani demonstrated, in a New York City virtually prostrate with crime and degradation, that this is only common sense.  Jack  
  

Go Bernie and Kirsten (or Kirsten and Bernie)

A recent report holds that good 'ol Bernie is the early favorite for the Democrat Presidential nod in 2020.  Another view which I respect opines that Kirsten Gillibrand will be anointed.  In both cases, (oh Gad), I hope so. The Dems would thereby drift ever closer to foundering on the far left reefs.

I do so love Bernie Sanders.  He is  deliciously atavistic.  He takes me right back to my freshman year of 1965 when all was so very clear.  At that time he was involved in the celebrated "Young,Idealistic, Ungrateful, Apologetic for the Gulag and Mao, Unquestionably correct Socialists of America", down there in NYC rocking and sneering out to Woody and even  young Arlo, to Pete Seeger and to Peter Paul and Mary in turtle neck sweaters in smoky coffee houses. How redeeming it all was and blasphemous too, I mean all that cigarette indulgence.  And to think - Bernie came right out of that milieu  to our very time- why imagine other then contemporary figures with us again - George Wallace, Abby Hoffman, George Lincoln Rockwell, Harold Stassen, Clean Gene McCarthy, "Bobby" Kennedy, the Smothers Brothers and well, all of them!  I can hardly contain my nostalgia; Kumbayaa to the max.  Actually, I sat at a campfire in the 60's helping to render that perhaps unjustly maligned tune; Bernie wasn't there though. Maybe he was already ministering the true faith to benighted Vermonters.

The thing I love about Bernie is his honesty, honestly! No Alinskyite obfuscation on his part, mind you.  He comes right out with it;  he'll shamelessly take from the productive and blithely give to the willfully unproductive and if you don't like it, well. . . Better stand up to it now because if Bernie gets the opportunity to institutionalize "political correctness", as is the wont of all Marxists, you'll earn a vacation in Stalinland Amusement "Park" if you foolishly think you still have a right to free speech.

And young Kirsten, we know what to expect there.  She is Charles Schumer's shill and he would ensure that she remains so should she improbably gain residence in the executive mansion.  Schumer is of course unelectable outside of NY because he is a stereotypical New York City know it all, exceeded in that obnoxious role only by Andrew Cuomo (another to be hoped for pretender).  Now Kirsten does have the advantage of not sounding like a NYC type (her accent would fit in most anywhere between the coasts and above the Mason Dixon line) but do you think that would flummox a canny NYC guy like President Trump?  Fugettaboutit! He'll nail her.   She's also given to publicly uttering hyperbolic obscenities to refer to those who excite her juvenile antipathy and that still doesn't work for the real America

I can't wait.  Given their frantically vindictive response to the democratic election of President Trump one must delight in the prospect of the hellish whirlpool of  hatred,recrimination and despair into which Dems will plunge after  their 2020 repulse. Let Bernie and/or Kirsten lead them over the brink, please.  Jack

Why, we Dems never did like those Clintons

There has been some current commentary to the effect that the Democrats may commit the Clinton "couple' to the political deep, with disgrace aforehand.  This would be a purely tactical move on their part and we must not allow it to be widely perceived as a belated expression of regret for past Democrat party devotion to this tawdry pair. They are advancing it now only cynically for gain in 2018 and 2020.

Democrats probably perceive that Hillary has shot the bolt in her fevered and perhaps even pitiable (given the disgrace her "husband" relentlessly visited upon her) lifetime pursuit of ultimate vindictive power.  She shows signs of considering a laughable Stassenesque reprise and they fear the consequences of such an embarrassing spectacle. So a preemptive  PR strike on her may be in the works though I don't know what form it might take. Perhaps abandoning her to the consequences of her scandalous past?   Oh, if only she would just retire to the Mondale - Dukakis - Kerry old wronged and perversely denied candidates home. . . But, convinced of her irrefutable righteousness and facing the boomer urge for a last hurrah, she may not cooperate.  Oh, what to do!?

Now "Bill", that's a different matter.  Oh how the chickens do come home to roost, to use a metaphor familiar to many from the rural roots which nonetheless gave rise (as it were) to Slick Willy (no quote marks necessary).   Nobody, but nobody, can refute his well deserved reputation as a cad. But credible evidence has been advanced and is now being reiterated, with potentially catastrophic implications for him,  that he is a forcible rapist (not to mention the long since affirmed reality of him as a perjuror, a draft dodger and one who denied an American citizen a meaningful day in court despite being, unimaginably now, the titular chief law enforcement officer of this Union of ours). For 71 years, his ability to hide behind a corkscrew has facilitated his escape from the consequences of his willingly enacted misdeeds.  Now his apologists may leave him to swing and his long delayed and  deserved reckoning with the real America may be at hand.

Why, the venerable Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she of the laughable Presidential ambitions as a stalking horse (a Lurleen Wallace if you will) for the unelectable Charles Schumer (and his undoubted shill since her appointment to office) has opined that Slick Willy should have resigned. Well that does it; all it will take now is for Elizabeth Warren to declare that he needs a haircut and the Dems are shut of this execrable legacy.

But they are not and we should never let them be. Once the Clintons and the boomers of whom they are exemplary pass in the next thirty years the nation can let it go.  But until then be it never forgotten:  the Dems willingly went to the wall for this disgusting pair which disgraced our White House beyond measure and with supreme presumption. Charles Schumer, a certainly still present power, denounced Willy's impeachment trial as "ridiculous". The Dems even anointed her!  Let the Clintons be the Dems' deserved albatross for the foreseeable future.  Jack

Some cultures are serious about crime. Eg. China

I do not know if the American athletes accused of shoplifting in China actually committed that presumptuous offense.  If they did, they displayed reckless indifference to the reality that many cultures are unequivocally determined to spare the law abiding majority the far too often excused predation so evident in America.  Strange that, if so; the athletes are college students and have no doubt been thoroughly apprised of the superiority of all cultures to our own.  You'd think they would know better, I mean, being academics and all.

When I was in the Far East in the US Navy  from 1968-72, we were advised in as many words: "yeah, ok, go ahead and do things for which you would be almost reflexively exonerated in a U.S. far more interested in protecting the 'rights' of victimizers than those of their victims.  You'll be ensnared in a system based on the conviction that crime is absolutely intolerable - Period!"  In every port we left men behind who did not respect that warning and they were subjected to the tender embraces of  criminal justice systems based on the concept that criminals are individuals who choose to do that which they ought to know will not be countenanced, "no! - under no circumstances"! If one chooses to enter such a country, one must comply with such law and those countries have every right to expect that of visitors.

The reason they are very quick to punish crimes such as shoplifting is that they know that to excuse that and similar lowlife practices gives license to even more destructive crimes - a very common sense idea.  Their determination to prosecute that belief has the result of their countries being safe for the most  ardently protected segments of any sane and healthy society - children and senior citizens.  We know, to our shame, that we have failed in this.  Its no mystery to the Chinese..

I went to university in Singapore in 1974.  Their country was a tawdry hellhole of all manner of drug related  disgrace when they were ruled by Westerners.  Once the ethnic Chinese dominated  Singaporeans took over in the early '60's they declared " As common sense requires, we  affirm that we will not tolerate crime.  We recognize no qualifiers to this commitment.We have  witnessed undeniable evidence of the corrosive effect that Western excuses for crime have on any sensible society. Westerners think it paramount that the 'rights of the accused' be observed, to the rejection of all other considerations.  We do not. "

One may disagree with their viewpoint but to be fair one must consider the disadvantages of ours.  I recall the execrable  "Bill" Clinton scolding the Singaporeans for having enacted corporal punishment on an American punk convicted of vandalism in  their safe and orderly nation.  The Singaporeans rightfully bade him look to the crime rate in his country.

Perhaps the situation with the UCLA athletes became political; maybe it was a bargaining chip between our President and that of China.  If so, the athletes were subjected to considerations inappropriate to that of which they were accused.  But if they did it, maybe they will wise up? Jack

This was "our day": Gettysburg Address Remembrance Day 2017

I'm a Private in the 42 PA (Bucktails) reenactment regiment.  We have participated regularly in the annual commemoration of President Lincoln's essential Gettysburg Address  in which thousands of Civil War reenactors ,Union and Confederate, march through Gettysburg and end up on or near the hallowed battlefield.

This year we mustered in plausible anticipation of interference in our ceremonies from leftist radicals who have of late insolently attacked the memory and memorialization of the Confederacy in their continuing effort to discredit the history of this, to them, unforgiveable country. Law enforcement did a typically painstaking job in preempting such presumptuous anarchy at Gettysburg.

In the event, the craven lowlifes declined to emerge from their burrows.  We mustered for the parade in a cold penetrating rain which bade fair to suppress both reenactor and spectator turnout.  But that  was not to be.

We sallied forth in continuing frigid downpours, to the tunes of  most inspiring Civil War marching bands, to the elevating applause of patriotic and knowledgeable crowds.  Completely absent were arrogant and bigoted and plainly intimidated radicals. The cold rain lent an unanticipated drama to the progress.  The route of the march took us through a portion of the battlefield, just in the rear of the apex of Pickett's Charge, which has been recently restored to its 1863 aspect.  It was such a thrill.

Our Union column preceded that of the Confederates, who descended the slope to the open area where we gathered post march, in our view ,and they did themselves proud.  Generals Lee and Longstreet led them on foot. As they drew near to us we formed up again and rendered them military honors as they passed through our formation.  It was a sublime moment. Our Captain, Chuck Copello, who organized the tribute to the Johnnies, said it best: " This was our day!" American common sense and love of country prevailed. I'll never forget it.  Jack

Man hater madness

The assorted  crude blunders,  improprieties and perhaps crimes perpetrated by the grotesque Harvey Weinstein in his apparent unending quest for amorous satisfaction have given rise (as it were) to a renewed hue and cry among the purely man hating faction of the feminist movement for close scrutiny of ALL men on the principle, most vindictively and hatefully expressed by seminal "feminist" Susan Brownmiller, that all men are potential rapists; well! The obvious counter to such powerful nonsense is that which all unsociopathic men know; it is not possible for most men to generate penetrating power in the throes of emotions as violent as those required for the commission of as execrable an outrage as rape. Sorry, Susan, only men (and women who are willing to judge men as individuals) know that for sure.

Marxists are blithe to propose proscribed classes, membership in which is defined by relative wealth, education, private or public executive status, professional accomplishment , unforgiveable ownership of private property, or, in the opinions of  radical feminists, possession of a penis. Once in power Marxists follow through in murderous fettle on these frivolous perceptions.  Its a convenient tactic to be sure and has a fabled history of mass disenfranchisement, even unto death, in the 20th century.  Those (including some men) who consider all males to be suspect at least, while violently and disingenuously denouncing any "stereotyping" of women are nonetheless, stereotypically totalitarian.

Oh Gads, where have we seen this before:  the "rich" Kulaks in the Ukraine who were starved in the tens of millions by Soviet bureaucrats who declared their relative prosperity to be "oppression"; all who expressed any doubt about the insane post war tactics of the Khmer Rouge; etc , etc ad nauseum since 1917

It is surreal to have to express and affirm common sense but it is inescapably necessary in this Marxist infested time. Normal men and women are attracted to one another and in a social convention known as "courtship" seek to discover others interested in partnership. Vengeful feminist extremists would have this codified in penal law (so to speak) as criminal when men are the initiators of the dance. And as always with radicals, accusation is tantamount to condemnation and "sexual harrassment" is now, well, whatever they say it is.

In their unrelenting crusade to destroy our society and replace it with one in which advantages and dis advantages are rationed solely in accordance with one's membership in exalted or excoriated classes, leftists have attacked our religious fundamentals, the 5000 year old institution of marriage, our artistic sensibilities, our painfully evolved governmental and legal systems, our military and police, our right to self defense and any positive principle which attracts their basilisk gaze.  Why not then seek to effect the actual outlawing of one of the most spontaneous and inevitable of human interactions?  Why not indeed?    Jack   

       

Yeah, lets disarm the lawful

Another insane outrage and due of course to the unconscionably easy access to guns enjoyed  by homicidal Americans, yes? That this is a perception honestly held by many people of good will is understandable but they are misused and misrepresented by those at the heart of the "gun control" movement.  Those cynics have as their goal the political discrediting of gun owners and their highly effective organizations (eg. NRA) as a key to destroying the entire conservative movement, which knows them for what they are - totalitarians. They think draconian gun control will discourage NRA and its supporters.  Silly babies!

Lets imagine them their visions in realization.  Lets actually ELIMINATE, say, two thirds of the estimated three hundred million plus firearms privately owned by constitutionally free and tyranny resistant Americans.  Gee. I guess the availability of a mere one hundred million firearms sure will put the quietus to the madness now won't it? The monsters will have to resort to, well, powerful vehicles like trucks.  But we already know that can't happen in places like Andrew Cuomo's "Safe" New York, now don't we?

That this kind of nonsense didn't  frequent the 1950's, when gun ownership was not publicly described as mass sociopathy by then rightfully despised leftists, is blithely ignored by the gun banners isn't it? That is because it was before the beginning of time to them: 1964. It is therefore dismissable. What the really determined gun banners like Schumer, Cuomo , the Clintons and their avatars dread is attention to their very real and personal responsibility for mass violence in today's America through their relentless onslaught since the '60's on traditional values, the moral vacuum it has created and the subsequent license that affords to the criminally warped. They cannot risk close scrutiny of that reality so they disingenuously push measures they know cannot work as per their stated intention.  They see yet another opportunity to do so now.Jack

Redirect NEH,NEA and PBS funding to extending Internet access.

In an article in our local newspaper which I expect to see soon on the blog Waddyisright.com, Dr. N.L. Waddy of SUNY Alfred proposes a very sensible realignment of  some national broadcast priorities to extend Internet access (Dr. Waddy, please correct me if I am wrong about its prospective appearance on your blog).   Please read his post because I doubt my ability to paraphrase it correctly.  I thought it very plausible.

It was printed close to an article describing concerns potential grant recipients have about the Trump administration's plans to discontinue Federal funding of  the National Endowment for the Humanities; similar lamentation has been emoted over intended Federal defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts and the "Public Broadcasting System" (I can't help but put the latter in quotes, its so presumptuous).  Supporters of these agencies (prominently among them their employees), disingenuously wail that defunding them will kill "the arts" in the U.S., especially in the nether regions of our vast land. They purposefully ignore the infinite variety of culture already available on the Internet, a medium visually and audibly comparable to the broadcast media.  Want a full opera or ballet or a gallery of paintings by any artist, or a lecture by any accomplished intellectual or a Shakespeare or Moliere play in full professional performance or an opus by any serious musician, now or back then?  Its there.  What the Internet is free of, at least for now, is control by the unelected bigoted American leftist bureaucrats who so obviously and blithely dominate the aforementioned Federal agencies and who direct thereby the devotion of hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars to their  political causes - taxpayers of different persuasions be damned.  Advocacy is their game, not cultural enrichment (though they do fancy themselves bringing enlightenment to the benighted).

They have enthusiastically funded and defended abominations like "Piss Christ", a vicious and scornful depiction of a crucifix dipped in urine.  Would they have funded "Piss Martin Luther King" or "Piss on global warming fanatics"?  Well, we (including them) know they would  have been dipped in urine rather than have done so.

Lets redirect their funding and their broadcast space to the extension of the Internet to all reaches of our land. That would give all Americans complete access to high culture at any time, free of the snooty biases of those who think British high society soap operas so very much better than the Young and the Restless. Those who maintain that that will eradicate the arts in America choose not to consider the universality of the Internet and dread their own disempowerment.  They also ignore history; did Herman Melville or Emily Dickinson or Theodore Dreiser need federal support to perpetuate their works?  They let their works speak for themselves in the free market of public opinion; to which the American left, totalitarian as it is, is unalterably opposed. Jack

    

    

Our impolitic President

President Trump is impolitic! Impolitic I say sir! Why, that he is sometimes and I'm glad he is.

Politics is sometimes described as a blood sport.  With any blood sport, noxious substances other than blood, and visual, audible and olefactory unpleasantries are also essential.  A dirty business to be sure.

The dirtiest man ever to be President was yet exceedingly politic.  He was a very polished speaker, always looked tops and was a genuine charmer in personal contact.  Not for nuthin' was he called Slick Willy. He was skilled in political manuvering and accomplishment. .  He was very politic and also very corrupt. He was the darling of those who today wage an unprecedented, insane onslaught on President Trump.

The real America empowered President Trump because it has exhausted its patience with politics as usual, so it makes sense that we will continue to support one who was not of the political world and who has demonstrated his determination to change it for the better.  His recent statement disparaging "political correctness" rings well and true to us; he showed integrity and gutsiness in simply using the term.

It makes sense to us that a person whose success was outside of government will undergo a period of adjustment to the Presidency, which might even include mistakes. But he's obviously no push over and nobody's shill and that appeals to we who abide in the often rugged everyday world.

I'd say we are alot better off with this boisterous, enthusiastic, sometimes crude real American than we would be with some slicko or with an apologist who dreads being seen as "insensitive".  We owe him much gratitude for preventing  the ascension of a grimly determined and exceedingly base and vindictive politician and for enduring the withering calumny directed at him. He is often accused of being "egotistical".  No one's ego is helped by the kind of truck he has to endure. At 70 and with wealth, he did not have to do this. Jack      

Hush! Prince Andrew speaks . . .

I do much love writing about Andrew Cuomo.  He's so deliciously hyperbolic.  His pompous pronunciamentos are doubly hilarious because he really is serious in declaiming them.  Then there is  the sonorous Shakespearean delivery - well!

His latest is a royal rebuke of  provincial Congressmen Chris Collins and our own Tom Reed here in the footless reaches of the real America which yet abides in the People's Principality of NY (C).  He calls them traitors; all that is good preserve me from blasphemy, he does. They are latter day Benedict Arnolds, too, by his high lights. An accusation of treason merits serious consideration, I'd say, rather than childish vindictiveness, before it is responsibly levelled.  Benedict Arnold was a very significant figure in the history of NY and for many good things he did as well as his tragic dissent. But I doubt that Prince Andrew knows much about the history of "his"state.  He is too busy creating history and planning for his ascension to the Crown itself.

Ostensibly the Congressmen were denounced for having advanced the passage of a federal budget including the discontinuance of federal tax deductions for state and local taxes. But the House version was crafted in a manner which also makes Democrat party obstruction of it far more difficult in the Senate.  It is only common sense to say, given the frantic and bigoted legislative record of Democrats since the intolerably democratic establishment of President Trump, that content is irrelevant and origin is all that matters to Democrat representatives; Republicans sometimes actually muster the insolence involved in recognizing and countering this certainty.  That is one of the Prince's real concerns I think.  The other is that the inability to benefit from state taxes on one's federal return will focus much unwanted consequent attention on the excessive state taxes required by His Righteousness in accomplishing the transfer of wealth from the productive to the willfully unproductive which is his fondest dream.  "Let them stew" he would sniff when reminded that such deductions place an unfair federal burden, when  profligate tax and spend leftists reign, on states without confiscatory state taxes and with no say in NY or CA or NJ tax law.   

God speed him in his quest for the Democrat nomination.  That means he will  be forced  to converse (well, sorta) with the country for a very long time indeed and will give us much opportunity to see him at his rib tickling best; it may also relieve New York of his onerous authority and his insufferable sanctimoniousness in policy making..  I think he has about as much chance of actually being elected as  Kim Jong Un has of becoming an honorary U.S. citizen but it will be so much fun to see him slavering after it in high theatrical mode.  He ought to study the condescending  and disingenuous address Shakespeare's lordly Coriolanus made to the Roman mob he despised because that's the way our Prince will look upon the task of "relating" to everyone between Binghamton and Bakersfield. Just imagine the rolling eyes, the disingenuous smile and the imperious tones wowing audiences in the "flyover country" to which he ventures, even in NY, only on compulsion and with nauseous misgivings.  Run, Andy, run.  I can't wait to hear our President Trump say to you "Andrew, you're  full of hot air and you're in love with yourself." But then, that's obvious to common sense real Americans.  Jack    

Roy Moore

Here are what I think to be the salient facts about Judge Moore, who is the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Alabama; he is opposed by Democrat Doug Jones in a special election to be held December 12. He was elected Chief Judge of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2001 but was removed from that office by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary in November of 2003  for refusing to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building, despite an order from a federal court that it be done. He was again elected Chief Justice in 2013 but was suspended in May, 2016 for directing Alabama probate judges to continue enforcing that state's ban on same sex marriage, despite a  U.S.Supreme Court decision which had the effect of legalizing it throughout the U.S. He appealed, lost and resigned in April 2017. He was one of the founders and was President of the Foundation for Moral Law, the purpose of which is to affirm the sovereignty of God in law making.  In a CNN interview, as edited, he stated that  in 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court, in making a decision striking down a Texas statute against Sodomy, usurped the legislative function.  He was quoted in that interview "homosexual conduct should be illegal".  He has a credible reputation as one who believes Christianity to have always been essential to American democracy in that it is the moral  requirement for the affirmation of individual rights. He is an outspoken supporter of President Trump and is widely expected, if elected, to be a leader in mobilizing true GOP support for our President.

If I could, I would gladly vote for Judge Moore.  If he is elected, I will celebrate much as I did last Nov. 8th.

For one thing, his foundation has supported the Colorado bakers who refused to obey a liberal inquisition's order to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple despite the resulting violation of their religious beliefs.  They were subjected to draconian legal sanctions but the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to judge their case. I have no doubt that Roy Moore's Foundation for Moral Law will lend the bakers legally powerful support. The bakers have been terribly wronged by the totalitarian persecution to which they have been subjected and Judge Moore stands for justice for them.
  
The U.S. is  a Christian nation to the very core. In virtually every small town I've ever seen, the two most substantial buildings are the school and the church(es).  That is very good news for our other religions because modern Christianity expresses and enacts profound respect for other faiths .  That is because over the last 2000 years Christianity has learned from its mistakes; it underwent a painful self examination during the Reformation, the Counter Reformation and the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, which redirected it to the love and forebearance of its founder.  To deny its primacy in American thought and reflection is "politically correct" sophistry and is understandably advanced by those who seek to destroy our culture as a prerequisite to its replacement with a regime inspired by notions formed from whole cloth by presumptuous radicals. I think Judge Moore subscribes to this view and in doing so, demonstrates his essential Americanism. The Founding fathers never intended separation of  politics, government and the Christian faith.  Might as well remove Newton and Einstein from the science of physics.

The rule of law, a mainstay of Western civilization from the Romans on, MUST be honored or lawful order is forfeit and chaos is nigh in our culture.  Judge Moore resisted it in 2003 and paid the price.  In 2013 he did so again.  Thoreau, in Civil Disobedience, an essay for which the 1960s' style radicals who now have such a fell effect on our politics have expressed admiration, nonetheless therein admonished  principled rebels to accept the lawful consequences of their actions.  Judge Moore has suffered the consequences of his resistance and leftists, with their demonstrated disdain for our cultural history and their cavalier dismissal of painstakingly settled and natural law, lack the moral and intellectual authority to attack him. Pro communist terrorists were "guilty as hell and free as a bird" when they traitorously undermined our fight against the world Marxist depravity which presumptuously denied that for which men like Judge Moore have unshakeable faith.

Lets assume that the CNN interview was fairly edited and accurately quoted. Really, that's generous.  His doubts about the propriety of the Supreme Court decision which outlawed the Texas sodomy statute yet reiterated many, many warnings about the drawbacks of allowing a nine member tribunal to write  national law every bit as mandatory as that passed by hundreds of state and  national legislators.  Yes, I'm sure that Judge Moore recognizes Marbury vs Madison as settled law but his demonstrated reservations about the misuse of judicial review are honorable.

I imagine Judge Moore, in having made his quoted statement on homosexuality, to have been saying this to the interviewer:  "You asked me if I think homosexuality should be illegal; I said 'homosexual conduct should be illegal'.  In the context of evaluating the Supreme Court decision and despite your blatant effort to advance my comments beyond what I intend by demanding a yes or no answer, I say Texas law should be decided by Texans, embodying their beliefs, instead of by detached intellectuals in Washington.  If it were, I would think it probable that the Texas statute would stand."  If this is what Alabamians believed he was saying,  then his reelection  as Chief Judge was a very plausible indication of his fitness to represent his state, yes?

 I rejoice to think of the possibility of Roy Moore in the Senate. His efforts and his very presence should go far toward affording our very sensible and public minded anti elitist President the support he needs.  The spineless RINO faction in Congress must be shown the door - its day is done -  and Roy Moore has the sand in his craw to lead the charge. I love his unapologetic faith in the common sense real America and his resolve to advance its (if you will) "terrible swift sword" against those Republicans who are afraid to use the historic chance they have been given to destroy the scourge of American Marxism.

I am not afraid at all of an incipient theocracy led by a prospective Senator Roy Moore.  The very present threat presented by the radical leftist faction, motivated by absolutism which puts the medieval Papacy to hob and which has empowered two and almost three Presidents already, is a far more onerous and immediate prospect. We know what to expect from any Democrat Party Senator -  subjection to New Yawka Charles Schumer.  "Senator Moore": a much to be hoped for consummation. Jack      

 

Anti-American "anti-Confederates"

Well I just got back from the annual Battle of Cedar Creek, VA reenactment.  I'm a private in the 42d PA "Bucktails ".

We had been notified of a written physical threat to those in attendance. Alot of us think that that  actually increased reenactor numbers. We had a very impressive battle on Saturday, with manyspectators but shortly after we returned to our camps (on the original field of that decisive but little known clash) we were told that a viable bomb had been discovered in "Sutler Row" (rows of tents for vendors offering a wide variety of items of interest to reenactors and spectators alike.)  Law enforcement took over, skillfully examining and countering this and a reported second bomb snuck into a wood pile in the Confederate camp. By Sunday morning law enforcement had done its unending job characteristically well and it was possible to reenact  another battle as intended.

I have predicted that the American left , if convinced that its  lawful and conventional efforts to take our country are futile, will resort to terrorism.  The defeat of its darling in 2016, the development of President Trump into a formidable national leader and their dread of repulse in 2018 and 2020 has the left in a rare old mess.

They are fueled by emotion.  Yes, there are very clear headed, serious planners among them who are yet devoted to the gradual destruction of America and its replacement with a "just" totalitarian entity.  But the bulk of their cadre and their flock has  displayed frantic juvenile hatred in their insane but fully to be expected onslaught on the very person of our duly elected President.  That their "feelings", stung to the quick by the empowering of one who has no illusions about them and no fear of them, have turned to panic, is apparent in their fevered dreams of a Sanders , Harris or Warren dictatorship and in their  resort to "the guerrilla"  by the unstable so often to be found among them. That was at work at Cedar Creek, I think.

This incident is characteristic of the ignorant bigotry of  many who deny anything positive in the exertions of those who fought through unimaginable hardship for their country in the South. Southerners  have subsequently proven to be among the most truly loyal of Americans.

This current effort to discredit the memory of the Confederacy will fail; its leaders sneer at the real America which acknowledges shame for our historical misdeeds but affirms that, on balance and with very painful self correction (600,000 American wartime deaths between 1861 and 1865), this country strives for justice. The left's disdain for this and their determination to demand of America a submission to their perfectionist dreams they demand of no other country, defines and condemns their cause.

Their current vicious effort to expunge the memory of the Confederacy is an all too obvious prelude to an attack on our nation's historical and cultural fundamentals as an integral part of their campaign to destroy America and replace it with Marxist hell. Anti Confederate?  Nah, they are just anti America.  Jack

You leftists!

You are always making things more difficult!

It used to be easy to counter any accusation of moral turpitude you leveled at anyone and I mean anyone.  All one had to say in reply was "William Clinton". That said it all didn't it?  Perjury, forcible rape, draft dodging, inveterate lying, unrepentant marital infidelity, loathing for the armed forces and police, selling influence and information to which only one who has conned his way into high office has access, denying an American citizen her rightful and meaningful day in court while serving as the nation's top law enforcement officer, pardoning friends and, hand in hand with his consort, disgracing our White House beyond measure;  all such offenses are understandably associated with that name and certainly not with any opposition to them on his part. And by crackie, you stood by him, now that's a fact!. Yeah it used to be simple.

Now you lefties have made it twice as complicated.  Now we have to cite two names!  "Why what a preposterous thought it is that we knew ANYTHING about Harvey's antics when we schmoozed with him, facilitated his access to his prey and sought his bounty, because if we had, our unimpeachably high principles would have sent us reeling from his presence in horror equal ( well, maybe not quite) to that we feel each day we wake to the realization that Donald Trump was somehow elected. In proof thereof we submit our abandonment of him in this hour of ever more tawdry revelation of his misdeeds.  Oh please B'rer Bear don' throw us in that there briar patch."

By any means possible; the end  excuses the means and in no way predicts how we will rule - that's the ticket for you leftists isn't it.  Thank God we have a President who sees you for what you so obviously are and is not above putting a thumb in your eye.  I won't stoop to describing what that thumb, as administered by those old time hasslers, actually had on it,  but its symbolic of your lack of humanity and maturity.Jack

A Primer on Vietnam

Since the Vietnam War is now popular history, thanks to the always reliable PBS,  I intend this for those who do not know much about it and for those who might consider the possibility that they were mistaken in those days - all eleven of them.

The South East Asian nation of Vietnam split into North Vietnam and South Vietnam in 1954.  Four hundred thousand people fled their homes in the North. Somewhat fewer went North. The North was ruled by people called Communists and they decided to take those four hundred thousand people back from the South along with the whole danged country.

Now the people in the South did not want that to happen.  They had heard bad things about the Communists; that is because Communists routinely do very, very bad things to people they don't like.  And there are lots of people they don't like because those Communists are rather hard to get along with and people don't like being treated that way.

You see, some Russian Communists had the idea in 1917 that it would be nice if everybody was the same; that way everyone would have everything they need and everyone would be happy.  It sure sounded like a nice idea, so they tried it there and, well, it didn't work out so well because the Communists starved everyone who disobeyed their orders to be happy. Then the same thing happened to  millions of people in China, North Korea, Albania, Poland and many other countries.  So the South Vietnamese fought the North Vietnamese to keep that from happening to them.

About ten years before that America had fought Germans and Japanese who also did lots of bad things and we learned that its best to fight people like that before they get too strong.  Along about the time Communists had starved maybe as much one hundred million people they didn't like, America decided it was time to stop the Communists from doing that anymore. After all, the Communists might have decided to do it to us. We don't have to worry about that anymore and for sure we can't have any Communists in the U.S. (yes?). But back then - since South Vietnam was the  place they were trying to take over at the time, American leaders decided to stop them there so that they couldn't do any more bad things, like starving people or putting garbage bags over their heads.  Of course if we had stopped them there many more Vietnamese would be alive today.

In 1964 American leaders decided to fight very hard in South Vietnam to keep Communists from always looking for  new places to starve.  But fighting requires armies  which have to want to fight.  But many of the young men in 1965 did not want to fight.  You see, they had not had to look for work when they were 14 years old like their parents had to and they had not been around during that last big war and didn't believe anything bad could or should happen to them.  So they went to college instead and learned from very wise people who thought Communists were good. They thought that because Communists said they wanted to do good. Some of the young men got very mad at the country which had given them good lives - that was called being sensitive and "relevant".  They did not want to fight for it because they wanted to live long lives and marry college women. They were very intelligent and gifted, you see.  And they were right! After all, we might never have had Billy J. Clinton for our President if they had all done their duty.

So they yelled at our leaders and spit on the many young men who decided to do what their country asked.  That made the men who fought very sad.  It made the North Vietnamese Communists very glad. They became even happier when a pretty American movie star encouraged them to kill Americans. So they won and starved many  thousands more people.  But just to be kind they let alot of them get in boats and cruise around and sun bathe before they starved..

That's pretty well the way it was; at least it appears that way to people with common sense.Jack

          

"Gun Control" II

Over the last day, an effort to nationally ban the "bump stocks" which apparently enabled the automatic fire by the amoral Las Vegas monster obvious to anyone who knows about guns, has gained much support.  I'd certainly agree with strict regulation denying these devices to all but the disabled for whom they may well have been originally designed and one other threatened population but I'm a member of the common sense majority in the real America and a loyal NRA guy.
          
Alas though, I'm shocked, shocked I say, that anyone on the American left would advance such a measure.  We know how adamantly opposed leftists are to any proposal from those with the temerity to unforgiveably do as much as hint at anything which has even a ghostly chance of "offending" any of the "protected classes"  the left cherishes and patronizes and matronizes too. Why, radicals are the people who would ban Christmas because it might trouble animists. The left should be loath to offend the disabled.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              For shame, leftists, that you would advocate anything which denies any politically approved group all opportunities to live lives strictly  and measurably equal in every technical, material, emotional , legal and experiential way! The other group for whom you display your breezy disregard is one for which you have no respect anyway.  That is rural southerners for whom an ever increasing invasion by vicious wild pigs  is creating ever more lethal possibilities in the woods.  You would say, "well, just stay out of the woods" and that's to be expected from ignorant, culturally elite snobs. But reality is that many people in that area (and by the way, the hogs are heading for the Eastern suburbs) must have automatic weapons for protection against multitudinous herds of these creatures, which do not always go down with one hit. But then, you laud artists who use taxpayer's money to create crucifixes immersed in urine and images of Santa's elves having sex; you  casually scorn the religious values which inform the lives of most of the common sense majority, so I suppose you'd be loath to identify with rural people anywhere.And we know you have no problem vilifying Christians, especially Catholics;  you are "selective" after all, in your condemnation of "discrimination".

Look, I have a proposal to remedy this situation.  K.I.S.S. to be sure.  Some radicals ( and ,yes, many people of good will, against whom my sarcasm is not directed) suggest  ( and that word has a more forceful meaning to those of totalitarian convictions) that we look for factors common to all mass shooters, such as, maybe, use of certain prescription drugs.  Despite the "inconvenience" this might cause the millions, including many in law enforcement, who responsibly use such rigorously screened remedies, "if it saves one life its worth it!" Pish tosh - I have a far simpler thought.  Since we know for sure that all mass shooters must have trigger fingers, why the solution is obvious.  Pass a Federal law requiring all adult Americans to undergo, at government expense, amputation of the first two joints of their trigger fingers.  No discrimination now!  From revered 1930's one room school house teachers to Jailhouse Jake serving life without parole, under the surgeon's  knife you go. Sorry about the fact that 99.99999% of you would never consider mass murder anyway.  I mean, that will be alot more effective and easily confirmable than the hassle of going after the hundreds of millions of guns obstinately and ,well, resolutely,  retained by nonetheless lawful Americans, is it not so?

 If you believe I am capable of serious thought, please consider this: the moral and spiritual vacuum recklessly fostered by the left, which excuses personal responsibility and convinces the hideously insane that they have justification to slaughter, is the true cause of mass shootings.  Jack 

"Gun Control"

Since the American left has, true to form, hastened to attempt to take political advantage of the Las Vegas tragedy, it is right for those of us in the common sense majority in the real America to respond.

Those who advocate "gun control" belong to two major groups:  The first is of people of good will, often but not always people who don't know much about guns, who sincerely believe that stricter control of the manufacture,distribution and use of firearms in America will result in far fewer mass shootings.  I believe them mistaken but do not think they reflect the utter contempt for gun owners displayed by the second group.
                                                                                                      
The second group is concentrated in the coastal la-la lands and is exemplified by  Barack Obama, the Mayor of Chicago, Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell (only as a rep for the mostly degenerate entertainment industry) and attended upon by most of those who share their disdain  both for rural people and  for those who support the traditional values which are pillars of positive American living.  The second group does not care whether "gun control" dissuades monsters. Rather, they know that gun owners and their associations, including of course the NRA, are among the mainstays of the conservative movement because they support candidates and office holders who are conservative on a wide range of issues. The left has been done catastrophic damage by gun owners (eg. 1994, 2000 and 2016)  and dreams of discrediting gun rights advocates by relentlessly threatening them and passing ever more onerous restrictions.  They hope this will wear out gun people and alienate them from what they might perceive as an increasingly ineffective NRA, thereby fatally weakening the entire conservative movement - the hated enemy of radicals. Ain' happened yet! NRA thrives every time it is attacked.

A San Francisco area Congressional rep has accordingly urged passage of  a law mandating background checks any time guns change hands.  But the Las Vegas subhuman had passed such checks.  Perhaps  she seeks to distract the attention of common sense Americans from those who are truly culpable -her leftist comrades.  Guns were far more easily available in the '50's.  I know country people who carried them to school to harvest table meat on the way home.  The insanity of mass gun murder was almost unknown.  That is because the '50's came before the '60's, when the spiritual and moral foundations of our culture came under the unrelenting assault from the left they endure to this day.  In a country where ideas such as "if its my thing, its my thing and I'm gonna do it", "I've been wronged by society as a whole and society is going to pay" and "now lets not be judgemental like we used to be" have wide acceptance,  chaos is inevitable.  As a prison chaplain once told me"The fear of God must be reestablished because the lack of it is obvious everywhere".

We could  consider supporting universal background checks if we were assured that the records thereby generated would not be used to create the lists of gunowners and possessions necessary for  eventual confiscation. But we know from experience that such assurance is not possible because we've seen how eager leftist administrators already are to abuse existing gun laws in their unending  crusade to disarm law abiding Americans. Misuse of the existing Federal NICS background check system is extensively documented.  We must be ever mindful of the possibility of another far left led Federal executive branch determined to advance its comprehensive totalitarian purpose.  Their reflexive response to the Las Vegas abomination while in their present exile  says it all.  Jack                        

Massive reeducation, ehh?

Sometimes radicals inadvertently open windows into their totalitarian souls: Fox News reported today that a Penn. State professor denounced the term "meritocracy" as a "white"concept (read: " understood to be beneath contempt" despite the otherwise by leftists despised stereotypical cast of the criticism) and advocated "massive reeducation"  to change the minds of those as corrupted as to think hard work in hope of  personal gain is morally and objectively correct. If accurate, this report should be paid attention.

Since the left enthusiastically pushes the concept of "microaggression", I shall use it in opposition; surely leftists dare not chide. The term, as I understand it, means subtle remarks which nevertheless strongly suggest sincerely held politically incorrect ideas such as the many ill defined "isms", accusations of which leftists feel free to level at those who attract their scrutiny.What then might be implied by the term "massive reeducation"? If used by an academic as radical as to poo-poo one of the fundamentals of positive, productive living in almost every culture, it fairly begs the question. Could it be indicative of belief in TOTALITARIANISM?

 I think those millions caught in the tender clasps of empowered Marxism know just what massive reeducation means; the use of this term bespeaks gross "insensitivity" to their feelings, an accusation leftists must answer since they think  themselves free to aim it at will at any who vex them.  I'm reminded of  youthful 1960's idealists recorded discussing the then coming necessity (by their venerable lights) for setting up "reeducation camps in the southwest U.S." to reform those patriots still alive after the cleansing murder of the 20 million (more or less) who were beyond hope of correction .  Some of these lethal dreamers are paid by taxpayers to teach at major American universities today. Of course, Southeast Asian Marxist savages in the 1970's approached perfection in the murderously applied science of mandated politically redeeming "education".

I would assume that the professor who is alleged to have used the term "massive reeducation" invested some little effort in "earning" the advanced degree which is yet still required for faculty status in a university?  Having been overwhelmed by the readings in my first and only M.A. course, I can appreciate how much, well, just plain hard work is involved.

These  ardent leftists have been making perfect asses of themselves lately, is it not so?  Their conduct defines their cause.  Jack       

CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP!

This one I cannot resist. This is one area where I do know what I'm talking about. I am a retired librarian and was a conservative throughout my career. I was a prison librarian and I actually denied to whole prison populations the pornography, violent political screed, mafia memoirs, treatises on the successful practice of con games and excoriation of law enforcement they demanded from the taxpayers and crime victims who pay for their upkeep and their presumptuous criminality.  This earned me the enmity of many librarians.

I would note that two close relatives of mine are librarians too and are of liberal persuasion; I respect that in all who are of good will, as I know they are.

The library profession is dominated by leftist bigots who see as their guiding light the advancement of their political beliefs through their trade.  Try expressing conservative views at a librarians' convention, in a library school classroom or in a librarians' publication. Within the field itself at best you will be patronized; you may well be jobless. I refused membership in the American Library Association and the New York Library Association because of their blatant ideological biases and their obvious and profoundly unprofessional scorn for truly free inquiry.

Most mainline librarians instantly condemn what appears to them to be (gasp!) CENSORSHIP! That no librarian has an unlimited budget, that selection of materials necessarily involves rejection of some purchases, that there must be and usually are,stated standards for  (eeeeechhh) discriminating collection building,is a reality of librarian life.  The standards extolled by those who dominate the library world are exemplified as follows:  It is not proper for librarians to make personal value judgements on the suitability of prospective acquisitions when they advocate values prized by liberals, such as in  Heather has Two Mommies or Blood in My Eye, or children's books which portray humanity as  a rapacious , environmentally destructive lot or books which bid criminals reject personal responsibility for their outrages, or sicko novels which portray children as monsters.  This is CENSORSHIP and cannot be tolerated. It is proper for librarians to reject acquisition of materials which they personally evaluate as "racist", "sexist", excessively patriotic or any of a score of ill defined "isms" mandated in the world of the left to be regarded as anathema, self evident and  indefensible upon accusation.  That is NOT censorship; that is  principled selection, HUMPHHH!.

I am reacting to news reports which, if accurate ,say that a librarian in Cambridge MA rejected a donation of Dr. Suess books from Mrs. Trump on the grounds that they expressed"racist stereotypes". Imagine the reaction in the hypersensitive media had a librarian in Tuscaloosa, Alabama rejected       
 "Heather has two Mommies".

To those who laud this librarian's actions, if they are accurately reported, I would say this: Please define the term "racism" because it is an accusation so misused and overused over the last fifty years that it is largely bereft of meaning though it has undoubted unfavorable connotations.  Then please specify what statements by Dr. Suess rate such excoriation.  I await your response.

I remember the delight with which I, as a first grader in the atavistic town of Amherst, NY,  an affluent suburb of benighted Buffalo, in the yet High Middle Ages of the 1950's, awaited readings of Dr. Suess by our school librarian.  To think that I was, in the intense naivete of my deep minority, so manipulated by that ill intended person, devastates me; why, to think of how I was unwittingly perverted! To know that I was, even to the extent of determining my life's work ,so ill used, WELL!

I would suggest that it is relevant that the librarian in question is described as practicing in Cambridge, MA; perhaps that setting has had some effect on her alleged actions.That there is a , eh, popular viewpoint in that community is certain. yes?  I  do support librarians who respect the values of their community. Can it be that she might have a less than favorable opinion of the President and (by an implication which was widely spared Hillary Clinton) his wife?

I'd also note that Dr. Suess has been, of yet, spared the condemnation of even the self righteous baby boom generation which loved him.  And all those librarians and teachers who exposed us to his works!  To know that, by fiat of the 2017 left, they are declared heretic?  I don't know how I will survive this.  Look, we know you radicals want to destroy America - but Dr. Suess????Jack      

Civil War II thoughts

I hope I haven't worn out the Civil War analogy.  I'll try it yet again. Think of June, 1863.  Behind?  First and Second Manassas, the Seven Days, Fredericksburg and, worst of all, Chancellorsville. "My God", said President Lincoln, "what will I tell the nation?" Ahead? Victory and a united America, with all the good that brought the world in the 20th century. 

Ok,  we've lost another one in the fight against Obamacare and it will be ever that much harder to eviscerate it now.  But not nearly impossible.  Imagine if we were living under Hillary's onerous sway now and her third attempt to destroy the 2nd Amendment had just been turned back but not because we repelled it, because Dems themselves thwarted her.  We'd be pretty nervous about the future survival of our gun rights, yes?  Despite their whistling in the dark that they are out of the woods on Obamacare's survival, Dems know its still in mortal danger.  And it is; 2018 is coming.

Just think of what it would have been like had the radicals prevailed in 2016.  They would have hastened to extend the Federal government overreach which was and is the overall purpose of Obamacare.  But they have not the power to do it.We should take heart from that continuing and joyous reality.

In a football game, one team can be on the opponent's five yard line, then fumble - the fumble is picked up by the opposing team and run in 95 yards for a TD. What could have been a seven point lead becomes a seven point shortfall - really a 14 point difference.  The Dems may think they are on the five yard line and ready to score with the salvation of Obamacare, but they are not!

The solution to the GOP disarray evident in the failure to muster adequate support for President Trump's initiatives is 2018.  Replace the waverers with those who have the fortitude to back our courageous President.  He was elected because he was NOT one of them.  The nomination of Roy Moore is an encouraging start. 

So take heart, all of us who know we are engaged in an existential war with the American left for the life of this, despite its flaws, best great country on earth. Jack

Trump ain't no slouch

In the fall of 2000 I was driving alot at night so I listened to the Bush-Gore debates on radio.  Even over that limited medium Al Gore's frantic, childish impatience when Bush spoke(which momentarily denied Al his pulpit), suffused with disdain for anyone with the temerity to question his august prescience, was most obvious.  It is ever a defining characteristic of the left and is exemplified by Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Like all of their kind they see their recent defeat as an insolently and insufferably placed roadblock to their unquestionably just crusade to "fundamentally" transform an essentially unjust America.

I daresay a player like our President has dealt with many of this snooty ilk in his business career and is practiced in, well, playing them.  Of necessity he is a realist and knows he's going to win some and lose some but over his working life he's been a winner.  He knows Schumer and Pelosi for what they are; contemptuous bigots who would,  should they muster the power, destroy him.  But he senses that he must countenance some constructive intercourse with them. That works for me; I trust President Trump to be always faithful to the ideals he has expressed; he's already demonstrated such constancy, I hold.

I spent 20 years working in state prisons and though their guile is usually purposed by negative intentions, inmates did display an often fascinating array of techniques for "getting over". Skill at  con games is much exhalted and studied in that setting.  An essential and ubiquitous con game involves, of course, gaining unwarranted trust and gratitude. I would not put this beyond Chuck and Nancy but they cannot measure up to Donald's understanding of  the tactic.  He'll see it coming and will, I'm sure, be blithe to throw it right back in their disingenuous faces when the right time comes.  And if he gives them a taste of their own duplicity, then more power to him - hoist them on their own petards I say.

I know some martial arts involve allowing  opponents to make their most powerful moves and then turning their strengths upon them.  Consummate wheeler dealers like our President are no doubt accomplished practioners of this heady tactic in other settings.


I sympathize with all of his supporters  who fear that the President is conceding to the dark side in schmoozing with the left.  Of course there is risk but I do not think our gutsy President betrays us by taking it.  We need to stick with this guy and give him the support he needs in standing up for us.  I would urge those in the common sense majority in the real America who are considering abandoning him to reconsider.  His ascension was a miracle which saved our country from perhaps guaranteed eventual totalitarianism.  Lets stay the course with him despite the assured difficulties and dangers.  Jack             

Slavery

Human history is an indescribably complex and painful process and in its objective consideration, some positive values and accomplishments may yet be reasonably perceived in the totality of the lives and accomplishments of some slave holders (eg. Washington, Jefferson and Lee)  Some of them fostered a world in which slavery is presently absolutely abhorred, though not fully eliminated. Washington and Jefferson are widely and deservedly revered but Lee did very much to reconcile a painfully reunited country, (which could not have eventually faced up to its shortcomings had it not survived) in 1865 by counseling and exemplifying rejection of revenge and retribution.

The real truth, from which the left shrinks, is that some who enabled slavery, in the British colonies  and in independent America, harbored profound misgivings about slavery and that some of their advocacy and actions hastened the end of the subhuman institution in the West.  The formidable British navy, commanded by the British government, went far toward ending the transatlantic slave trade. The British government enacted this out of true conviction that that traffic was purely evil.

And of course, who are leftists to pontificate on  slavery, as has been their recent cant?   20th century Communist slavery is the very worst that that execrable institution has ever manifested. Burn your "Che" shirts and publicly abandon your consequence free casual Marxism-Leninism, radicals, should you improbably seek any credibility from civilized people. But I'm not holding my breath you see.

That the defense of the Confederacy was, in effect, a defense of  slavery is historically undeniable.  But that was not the only purpose of those who fought through the hell of Civil War combat and camp life to defend that new nation.  History confirms that the majority of Confederate soldiers fought to defend their homeland from the invasion of what they reasonably ,given 19th century communication and transportation, saw as a foreign invader.  The present display, including proudly flying the Battle Flag, by millions of good people in the South, but also some in the North,of gratitude for that effort, is more often than not, in a country where the civil rights war has been won with overwhelming popular support, not an assertion of bad will toward black people but a proud and unapologetic expression of the perceived worth of the courageous Confederate effort. It also  bespeaks love for a more relaxed, traditional and reverent American lifestyle and a promise that it will be defended.  Its an eloquent expression of current concern about federal government overreach, of resistance to elite liberal cultural disdain for the American heartland and of caution against possible future antiAmerican totalitarianism. American slavery no longer exists;  federal and in many states, state government abuse of power is an all too obvious present reality and has in it the potential to destroy our freedom if the left successfully harnesses it. Say what you will about them, those Rebs stood up to it in their day.

It is claimed that millions in this country are highly disturbed by statements or monuments praising  the memory of the Confederacy.  No doubt that is right.  Millions though, also consider attacks on expressions of regard for the positive aspects of the Confederacy to be unacceptable.  Are their wishes of less worth than those (many of them nonetheless people of good will) the left seeks to  mobilize in what for radicals is a continuing effort to destroy our country and replace it with Marxist hell?    

My  Alma Mater, SUNY New Paltz, has recently proposed an open minded  discussion to determine whether certain college buildings named for the original Huguenot settlers of New Paltz, NY - refugees from oppression in 17th century France ( which should endear them to the left ) - should be renamed because the originals  held slaves. The outcome of this exercise is preordained; it amounts only to a well intended ritual. That these buildings were named to honor people who had some positive effect on American and local history by founding the community in the first place and practicing lives of some productivity,  will probably not persuade the leftist bigots who set the political tenor of the New Paltz college community. This conflict fairly exemplifies one of the main  courses the left  follows in striving to destroy America: discredit all who deviated in our history from current leftist standards of political correctness! Destroy America's  regard for its history and you go a long way toward destroying  America's culture - a requirement for the "deserved"  death of our country for being "fundamentally unjust".

Predictions by our President and others that this antiConfederate crusade is a prelude to much wider attacks on our historical heritage and to eventual campaigns to discredit our most revered historical figures and of course, our flag, for unforgiveable political incorrectness, are ON POINT!  Since the fundamentally communist  Marxist far left is ever devoted to the acquisition and vigorous exercise of POWER, the obvious course for the loyal common sense majority in the real America is to mobilize the political will to stop this wrong headed assault. A good start is to express  thanks to the President for his courageous and even handed assessment of this situation.

A visit to the perhaps all important Gettysburg battlefield shows a profusion of monuments to Union stalwarts and very few for Confederates.  The Confederacy was beaten; a united America emerged from that war ready to face the harrowing challenges posed by the great dictatorships of the 20th century.  Southerners have, despite their defeat in the 1860's,  been the backbone of the U.S. military which saved us and Western Civilization from that onslaught, for one hundred years.They are owed very much credit for that.

I know I would rejoice at the building of  towering monuments to the fortitude of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and all those whose lives were destroyed by bondage in this otherwise free land.  But leave the Confederate memorials, leave them be!    John/Jack